Litter training advice please.

Sorry, I know this subject has been done to death, but our problem is quite specific.

Teddy and Taylor (male and female) are one year old rescue rabbits. They are neutered and spayed and pretty tame by rabbit standards. They are outdoor rabbits, but come inside a couple of times a week for cuddles

We have only had them for two weeks. They used a litter tray at their rescue centre when they felt like it, but werenít very reliable.

When they came to live with us, they very quickly decided where their Ďtoiletí was, so we put a litter tray there, and they are very good and usually hop in there to do droppings. However... they do their droppings there, and then carefully hop out of their litter tray to urinate right next to it, on the newspaper on the floor of their hutch Today I put a small pile of hay there, to at least mop up some of the urine, but they have now started urinating a bit further along the floor

Why wonít they urinate in the litter tray??

Also, when we bring them in to cuddle them on the sofa, they urinate on it They are perfectly happy and asking to be stroked etc, so I donít think itís an anger/distress thing.

Had the hutch been used before by other rabbits? If so, this might be the reason. Everything has to smell of "them"! I decided to move a litter trained rabbit to another hutch and he has made a real mess in it. The hutch would possibly have smelled of other rabbits even when I'd vinegared it. You could try putting lino down, this might deter them from weeing there as they like to wee on something soft. Hence you sofa. Just a thought - you haven't had the buns very long so hopefully they will get better when they settle in more.

Yes, the hutch had been used before. We scrubbed it and disinfected it but it may still smell of other rabbits to them. Hopefully they will stop doing it eventually but in the meantime it’s really annoying! I cleaned the hutch out today and the minute I’d finished, Taylor hopped in and did a wee right next to the litter tray. She then got into the litter tray to do her droppings.

If you can clean the hutch and neutralise with vinegar/water mixture, then put down Lino/non slip vynil, and provide a big litter tray that they can both fit in comfortably, that should help. Low under bed storage boxes are good litter trays.

I would only have hay and newspaper or woodpellet litter in the litter tray, not anywhere else as that will encourage them to urinate wherever the hay is. Then if you have Lino down you can easily soak up the wee with kitchen roll and put the soiled paper in the litter tray, and neutralise the place they’ve weed on with vinegar and water.

If they persist in weeing in a specific spot you might need an additional litter tray there.

A lot of rabbits like to wee on soft things, which might be why they are weeing on the sofa, it could also be a territorial marking thing, again, you will need to carefully clean it and neutralise it so they don’t keep using it as a wee spot.